The Post-Carpenter Post

Is anyone else out there watching the new Sleuth Channel? The day's programming is comprised entirely of shows like Miami Vice, The A-Team, The Equalizer, and Knight Rider. This could be the start of a something truly wonderful — imagine if they develop this theme as far as it can go: Magnum P.I., Remington Steele, The Rockford Files, Moonlighting, Hardcastle & McCormick, Jake and the Fatman, Crazy Like a Fox, Riptide, Matt Houston, Automan... there's a bottomless well of great old shows just begging to be tapped.

And the theme songs! One thing the 70s and 80s will always be able to lord over the heads of all other epochs is their mastery of television themes. They got better and better throughout the 70s, and reached their zenith sometime around 1981-82 with the likes of Mike Post's Hill Street Blues theme and, of course, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” from Cheers.

Maus and I have been on a shameless TV theme binge for the last several months, filling our iPods with openings from everything from Mork & Mindy and Dallas to Red Dwarf and Twin Peaks. On a recent drive from Oregon to Seattle, we listened to 3 straight hours of themes — and could have kept on going all the way to Canada.

Maus's particular weakness is for sweet, hummable sit-com themes like “Without Us” from Family Ties (and also the Alex-&-Ellen ballad “At This Moment” from the same), “As Long as We Got Each Other” from Growing Pains, “Baby, If You've Ever Wondered...” from WKRP in Cincinnati, “Come and Knock on Our Door” from Three's Company, and naturally, the great “Love is All Around” from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

She also loves those larger-than-life hits (and karaoke standards) from Fame (“I'm Gonna Live Forever”) and The Greatest American Hero (“Believe It or Not”).

Me, I'm partial to the upbeat, sway-inducing spirituals from One Day at a Time, Good Times, The Jeffersons, and even Maude... although the greatest sit-com theme of all time has to be Quincy Jones's instrumental “The Streetbeater” from Sanford and Son (the Barney Miller theme ranks a close second).

But what I really love are the BIG themes, the Friday-night Mike Post/Pete Carpenter kind of thing: Knight Rider, The Rockford Files, Magnum P.I., The A-Team, Dallas, CHiPs, The Incredible Hulk... basically, Sleuth Channel stuff.

And then, there's Simon & Simon, another Sleuth favorite that the Tivo has started serving up two or three times a day. Besides being a great show, it has possibly the most infectious, involuntary head-bob/toe-tap inducing theme of all time (more cowbell!). When I recently suggested to my brother that Sanford and Son was the greatest of all TV themes, without missing a beat he replied (in his most matter-of-fact, there-is-no-question-about-it tone): “Actually, it's Simon & Simon.”

Damn. I hate it when he's right.